Contents

New extensible modular GUI framework

The goal of this project is to build a highly extensible GUI framework for Panorama creation, with simple yet intuitive layouts that both beginners and advanced users would be comfortable to use. The application should stay cross-platform.

Deliverables

Cross-platform Application

Acceptable look-and-feel with every platform's standard

Minimum amount of platform specific code

Completely modular system for organising the functionalities

Clear separation of the interface and implementations

Intuitive GUI for displaying those modules suitable for different levels of users

Implementations of some basic modules

Control-points Editor and other modules that require custom control may take long

Modules with a lot of parameters may be hard to come up with good organisation and layout

Should at least have examples that guide how other modules could be implemented

The new framework shall be constructed as such that users can edit/use various aspect of panorama project through modules (plug-ins) each of them providing one specific functions. The application should provide intuitive interface for the users to choose what to edit and display with what aspect.

The modular system is crucial because the panorama stitching is consist of several steps and the community comes up with new variations of each step every year, and each of them advances with new features every month.

Also crucial is the way those modules should be organised and presented to the users. Advanced users want to have access to every available feature, while there are many beginners and those who need access to only the basic tasks and options in simple and intuitive interface.

Discussion

Choice of GUI Toolkit: QT4 is modern and has good support on most of major platforms. wxWidgets is okay, but best of all we have many lines of code that are written for wxWidgets. Scripting languages like Python may have advantages in debugging and module managements.

Personally, I want to give QT4 a try. Though its widgets look weird on Mac sometimes, it has more to offer outside the GUI itself. --Ippei 20:05, 17 March 2007 (CET)